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“Another Burruss Hall in the family…”

It is official! Ann Schumin, my sister, is going to Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is a large school about three hours, give or take, south of Stuarts Draft. You may be familiar with Virginia Tech from when they were in the Sugar Bowl a few years back. Virginia Tech is a big school, with roughly 10,000 more people than at JMU, which is a school of 15,000 people. I thought JMU was big – imagine the size of Tech. Still, we’re very proud of her for getting in, and she’s going to be an English major. One thing that’s interesting is that JMU and Virginia Tech both have a Burruss Hall. And it’s named after the same guy – Julian Burruss. He was JMU’s first president, and then left JMU to be president at Virginia Tech. For JMU, Burruss Hall is the math and biology building, and I have a class there this summer. At Virginia Tech, Burruss Hall (seen at right) is the landmark building at Tech, with a big auditorium, etc. etc. etc. It’s interesting… Sis and I have been exchanging jokes about VT lately from various sources on the Internet. We get a kick out of both VT and JMU “stereotypes”. For instance, in the “Virginia College Student Morning Rituals” piece, Virginia Tech students “check rankings and cry”. At JMU, the stereotype puts our morning ritual as “roll over, introduce self”. Then there’s the “How many Virginia college students does it take to change a light bulb” one. At JMU, the answer is, “None. Harrisonburg doesn’t have electricity yet.” For VT, “Three. One to change the bulb and three to discuss how they bet they did it just as well as UVA students.” So it’s interesting, indeed. Still, we’re very proud of her for getting in somewhere that she wanted to go, and we’re excited with her. Now funny for me would be to see her get to Tech, and everyone say, “You’re Ben Schumin’s sister, right?” But anyway…

Date posted: April 7, 2003

Notes: The original photo that accompanied this article was a Virginia Tech photo of Burruss Hall. This photo was replaced during the site's conversion to WordPress with a photo from my own collection, taken in February 2005.